Social Impact is Inherent to Your Business
Business leaders don’t have to look outside their business model for social impact opportunities. Social impact is inherent to the business.
The current level of complexity is something that very few leaders have seen before, and the future seems more challenging. This crisis is much more complex today than during the 2008 crisis, given the multiple and diverse priorities business leaders must meet within the overlapping climate change, inflation, post-pandemic reality, and other interconnected socio-economic issues. Stakeholders, beyond investors, are shaping main management options. So, with or without a social impact mindset, business leaders are making decisions—whether they know it or not—which impact social issues material to their companies. This is the ‘S’ in ESG.¹
Current trends shaping the social footprint:
Climate change impacts people. Most vulnerable populations are losing homes and, in some cases, their lives.
The aging of the population will continue to reduce the labor force, further slowing growth.
Workers still feel ambivalent about returning to workplaces (following the pandemic), and companies are still struggling to bring them back.
Deglobalization and the consequent fall in world trade and investment will hinder the growth of developing countries and replace their demand with the fall in demand from industrial countries.
Of the 281 Fortune 500 companies in Russia before the war, about 70 percent have reduced or abandoned their Russian operations since the beginning of the war.
Central banks are already considering supporting retail and commercial customers over the next few years, anticipating their changing needs.
To ensure we are making good decisions and taking advantage of improving the company’s social footprint, we need to revitalize our business strategy. Consider these three approaches to start exploring the context and defining strategic aspirations for social impact:
Core business: consider innovation points, from customers to employees, from mitigating negative environmental or social impacts to serving new markets such as low-income segments and traditionally unserved populations.
Work processes and value chain: although the pandemic has forced companies to rethink work processes and digitalization, substantial profits will only occur when impediments to providing equal opportunities and digital divides among the value chain are reduced.
Broader ecosystem and industry externalities: find opportunities to leverage tangible and intangible assets (technology, infrastructure, intellectual capital, human capital, market presence, etc.) that have the potential to address industry externalities through open innovation and partnerships. Enhance your competitiveness by reducing the negative externalities and maximizing positive value to stakeholders.
Case Study: The S in ESG at CLARIOS stands for Systemic Social Change
Lead-acid batteries for our cars have 96% of lead composition or 10 kilograms of lead in weight per battery, and CLARIOS is one of the top global manufacturers. So, lead is strategically vital for CLARIOS, and they started a program to drive competitive advantage through social impact. In partnership with Pure Earth, they are pursuing a fundamental change that will affect how the whole lead ecosystem works today in Mexico.
Lead within batteries is vital for mobility, but loose in the environment, is very dangerous to children. According to the World Health Organization, “lead poisoning can affect children’s brain development, resulting in reduced intelligence quotient (IQ), behavioral changes such as reduced attention span and increased antisocial behavior, and reduced educational attainment.”
The lead poisoning due to lead-glazed pottery in Mexico has reached more than 1 million children. This issue costs Mexicans nearly $32 billion annually (2% of Mexican GDP), according to Pure Earth Mexico. Given the criticality of lead to battery performance—crucial in the transition to a net-zero economy through electric vehicles—negligent use of it from some lead ecosystem actors cannot be allowed to impact children’s health and quality of life.
CLARIOS and Pure Earth Mexico are addressing the causes of lead poisoning by assembling a coalition for a systemic change under the Lead-Free Food Alliance. The alliance is advocating for better public policy, enforcement, better pottery practices, and market conditions, rising consumer awareness, lead blood testing, and shifting mindsets, including potters, re-sellers, consumers, policymakers, and other private companies around the circularity of car batteries and its components, especially lead.
The CLARIOS Sustainability Blueprint’s first element is VALUE, where circularity plays an important role and where the company ensures consistency between its social impact plan and its strategic priorities.
Read more here: CLARIOS ESG report.
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¹ ESG stands for ‘Environmental, Social, and Governance’ and is applied to those environmental, social, and governance factors most important as identified by companies and industries.
Photo by Chayene Rafaela on Unsplash.
About the author:
Mario Elías González
Mario is Founder and Consultant at RiShift, a capacity-building business to support sustainability practitioners by strengthening their individual and collective capabilities to shape a sustainable future. As a facilitator, he is an ExperiencePoint certified trainer and has conducted workshops in 20+ countries around social innovation, shared value, sustainability, and social impact. He facilitator in the global program “Leading the Sustainability Transformation” at WholeWorks, and also an Associate Professor at EGADE Business School of the “Responsible Leadership” subject.
Mario held several management positions at CEMEX, including Inclusive Business Advisor, Responsible Business Manager, and Social Impact and Shared Value Advisor. Before CEMEX, Mario was Community Relations Coordinator at ACCIONA’s wind farm EURUS in Oaxaca, Mexico, where he established a successful stakeholder engagement strategy.
He holds a degree in Chemical Engineering from Tec de Monterrey and an MBA from EGADE Business School. He has completed executive training from Stanford, Yale, Boston University, INSEAD, and WholeWorks on innovation, finance, leadership, change management, and sustainability. He is an alumna of WholeWorks Leading the Sustainability Professional Certification Program.
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